PETpla.net Insider 08 / 2014

ITALIAN SUPPLIER 12 PET planet insider Vol. 15 No. 08/14 www.petpla.net tory for all machine areas at this site are also housed here, conveniently close to one another. Mould construction capacity here in Italy is 25,000 mould inserts/blow moulds per year. A further capacity expansion of 20% is scheduled for 2014. A similar moulds capacity is available in the Chinese operation. Plant No.2 In Plant 2 we find production lines operating on “lean” princi- pals for all linear and rotary stretch blow moulding machines ranging from two to 24 blow moulding sta- tions. In a ratio of approx. 30/70%, rotary/linear, stretch blow mould- ing machines that have undergone acceptance testing leave the plant in accordance with the specified moulding cycle. In the case of the rotary machines, the principal areas of application are the beverages sector, whilst for the linear machines, the range of applications is consider- ably greater, taking in sectors such as edible oils, body and health care, household and foodstuffs packag- ing right through to detergents and wide-mouth applications. Also worthy of note here is the particularly strong market for PET large size containers (up to 5 gal- lons), according to Roberta Gualt- ieri, be it stackable containers, kegs, from 5l up to 5 gallons with handles or special large size self-collapsible containers for water coolers. Plant No.3 Here we see the assembly and acceptance of the preform systems for all the range of machines. These include the xform range based on three machine sizes with a locking force of 150/300/500t and up to 144 cavities. The two smaller “hybrid” units, with their hydraulic injection units and electrically operated two- platen clamp units, were devel- oped in collaboration with Athena in Canada, while Sipa partnered with Engel in Austria on the xform 500 to accept moulds from any supplier. Also seen here are such in-house developments as ECS Integrated Systems for injection-stretch-blow moulding and the xtreme series. As for assembly, of the almost 50 xform machines so far sold (the range has been on the market for just 18 months) the majority are 96-cavity. Machines have been supplied to Asia, Japan, the Middle East, North, Central and Latin Amer- ica, Europe and Africa. The ECS series is continuing to be marketed only for special applications e.g. wide-mouth or hot fill. We were fortunate in being able to view another machine for an American customer at the assem- bly stage. According to Sipa, there are already three customers for the A first glance of EDITOUR 2014 latest development of the xtreme construction series, although details of the ultimate end users remained firmly under wraps. Bottling machinery plant in Parma The plant in Parma has been taken over by bottling machinery manufacturer Berchi. With 130 employees, Sipa is today concen- trating on PET bottling systems featuring up to 160 filler valves with subsequent automatic packaging and palletising. These multi-produc- tion lines, as they are known, repre- sent a special area here. Customers are able, using rela- tively simple re-tooling, to bottle still water and CSD as well as tackle hot fill applications. There is also the trend towards block lines with a preference for operating these with their own stretch blow mould- ing machines. According to Matteo Tagliaferri, 50% of the bottling lines supplied are already block or triblock lines and the tendency is increasing. Machines for closure One item still missing from the company portfolio is machinery for closure manufacture. According to Roberta Gualtieri, collaborative relationships already exist here with major manufactur- ers and there are no plans to invest in this product range. A new devel-